tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-54449497738250573172015-08-01T16:45:34.121+01:00lulucrumblepersonal stories, poetry, lyrics, musing and quotes. many posts are in memory of my eldest brother, Paul.<br>not for the feint of heart.lulucrumblehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07449102379996325573noreply@blogger.comBlogger59125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5444949773825057317.post-73556136609242510342015-08-01T16:45:00.001+01:002015-08-01T16:45:34.140+01:00Hiding my heart awayI wish I could lay down beside you<br />When the day is done<br />And wake up to your face against the morning sun<br />But like everything I've ever known<br />You disappeared one day<br />So I'll spend my whole life hiding my heart away<div><br /></div><div><span style="font-size: x-small;">from Timothy Hanseroth, 2007</span></div>lulucrumblehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07449102379996325573noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5444949773825057317.post-81824216065301434442015-01-26T13:28:00.000+00:002015-01-26T13:28:06.900+00:00Bloody Jutesone of the many things my brother taught me was that there is no such thing as an 'English' person; England is a rich tapestry of ancestral heritage that comes from all over Europe and beyond. he wrote this ten years ago and it still resonates today. perhaps even more so than it did back then.<br /><br /><b>Multiculture</b><br /><br />Saxon walled town,<br />Celtic field system,<br />Old Norman church,<br />Roman road,<br /><br />Angevin Bailey,<br />Tudor construction,<br />Mock Gothic arch,<br />Bloody Jutes.<br /><br /><span style="font-size: x-small;">Paul Maddocks (26 January 1969 - 19 April 2007)</span>lulucrumblehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07449102379996325573noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5444949773825057317.post-80848300434365921572014-12-22T13:03:00.001+00:002014-12-22T13:03:01.867+00:00LSD: A dying wish to cure fear<span style="font-size: x-small;">This is my entry for the <a href="http://wellcome.ac.uk/swp" target="_blank">Wellcome Trust Science Writing Prize 2014</a>&nbsp;(in association with the <i>Guardian </i>and the <i>Observer</i>).&nbsp;It made the 20-strong shortlist from over 600 entries. The entire shortlist and the winning entries can be found <a href="http://www.wellcome.ac.uk/stellent/groups/corporatesite/@msh_grants/documents/web_document/wtp058179.pdf" target="_blank">here</a>.</span><br /><br />“Try LSD 100 intramuscular,” read the note passed to Laura Huxley by her dying husband. And so the wife of author Aldous Huxley injected him with the powerful psychedelic lysergic acid diethylamide. He died five hours later on 22 November 1963, his face an expression of “complete bliss and love”.<br /><br />Before it was banned in 1968, a thousand clinical studies were conducted on LSD, demonstrating its use in treatment for conditions including alcoholism, depression and neurosis. For the next four decades, no further LSD psychotherapy research was published. Until now.<br /><br />The California-based Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies (MAPS) published a study in March 2014 investigating the effects of LSD on anxiety related to advanced-stage illness. In a small trial, 12 patients were given LSD before two psychotherapy sessions. The results of this pilot study show a reduction in anxiety levels, and, according to MAPS founder Rick Doblin, justify further investigation. Speaking to the Independent, Swiss-based lead researcher Peter Gasser confirmed that the beneficial effects of the treatment were stable over time and that no patients experienced “noteworthy adverse effects”.<br /><br />&nbsp;UK-based psychiatrist Dr Ben Sessa hopes the research will lead to LSD treatment not just for patients with terminal illness but “across the board for people of all ages with anxiety disorders. Existing treatments mask symptoms and can be lifelong. Psychedelic therapy would be a single treatment – it could treat anxiety disorder so it doesn’t return.”<br />&nbsp;<br />Peter, a 50-year-old Austrian social worker, described his treatment in the MAPS press release: “My LSD experience brought back… a timeless moment when the universe didn’t seem like a trap, but like a revelation of utter beauty.” Sessa explains: “The psychedelic experience is particularly wellattuned to the existential issues of death and dying – there is something about psychedelics that connects people with the other-worldliness of death.”<br /><br />&nbsp;Doblin said research by MAPS has not focused on the mechanism, since they only need to demonstrate it works safely, not how it works, to get LSD approved as a medicine. This study builds on a foundation of research that began in the 1960s at Spring Grove State Hospital, Baltimore, where psychiatrist Stanislav Grof pioneered the use of LSD to treat fear of dying. This was cut short when LSD was criminalised in 1968, a move that Doblin suggests was due to the drug’s use by anti-establishment hippies and anti-Vietnam War groups.&nbsp; <br /><br />Naturally, there are concerns over the danger of using a class A illegal drug as a medicine. “There's an enormous amount of research that demonstrates LSD is physiologically safe,” says Doblin. MAPS Director of Development Virginia Wright says that due to LSD’s bad reputation, US researchers were unwilling to carry out the current study despite its approval by the US Food and Drug Administration. The trial took place in Switzerland, where there is more openness and interest in LSD research, not least because it was discovered there in 1938 by chemist Albert Hofmann. Nevertheless, when the trial was approved in 2008, the Swiss People’s Party (the largest in the country) told Bloomberg that if international experts come to the conclusion that LSD could be seen as a medication, “we would have another look at the situation. But for the moment our position is still a conservative one.”<br /><br />To gain approval, there needs to be a much bigger study with a range of different patients to demonstrate wider efficacy. But this requires money – potentially tens of thousands of pounds. Drug development is often funded by pharmaceutical companies, and according to Sessa, these companies are unwilling to sponsor the process of bringing LSD to market. Since LSD might only be used once or twice in therapy, profit from drug sales would be limited. LSD’s reputation means public funding is scarce – MAPS relies on donations from individuals and charities. But, says Doblin, “So far no major foundation that supports medical research has funded psychedelic research.”<br /><br />At the time of writing, MAPS does not have funding for further LSD research. But other psychiatric research is making this type of work more commonplace – a study on ketamine and a Medical Research Council-funded investigation into magic mushrooms are both exploring effects on depression. As the stigma around illegal drug research lessens and red tape is removed, more studies may yet convince regulators to put LSD on the NHS.<br /><br /><span style="font-size: x-small;">Written by Louise Crane</span><br /><span style="font-size: x-small;">Edited by Mun-Keat Looi</span>lulucrumblehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07449102379996325573noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5444949773825057317.post-64066808263495270372014-12-01T22:06:00.000+00:002014-12-01T22:14:43.140+00:00Please donate £5 to stop suicideI am making one last plea for <a href="https://www.givey.com/lulucalm">donations</a> to the <a href="https://www.thecalmzone.net/about-calm/what-is-calm/">Campaign Against Living Miserably</a> (CALM). I've been trying to raise awareness of this suicide prevention charity since I <a href="http://lulucrumble.blogspot.co.uk/2014/11/31-days-sober-for-suicide.html">stopped drinking</a> for a month in October.<br /><br />I know how often you are all asked to donate to charity. I know you are fed up of people seeking attention for so-called hardships in return for money for a charity to which they might not even have a connection.<br /><div><br /></div><div>My brother hanged himself on the 19th April 2007. I will never, ever forget my mum's words on the phone: "The inevitable's happened. Paul's gone. He's gone."<br /><br /><b>No suicide should be inevitable. Suicide kills more men aged 20-49 in England &amp; Wales than anything else: cancer, heart disease, diabetes, road traffic accidents. And for every 1 person who kills themselves there are 20 more attempted suicides.</b><br /><b><br /></b></div><div>Please, please, take a packed lunch into work tomorrow, forego a drink at the bar on Friday, and donate £5 to the Campaign Against Living Miserably, who work long into the night every night as a solace for people who have decided they don't want to live any more. <br /><br />CALM could have helped Paul if he'd called, and can help the other <b>tens of thousands of men who contemplate suicide every year</b>.<br /><br />I don't want any more sisters, mothers, fathers and brothers to go through what I did. The grief drove me to the deepest depth of despair and it nearly killed my mum. No parent should have to bury their child.<br /><br /><a href="https://www.givey.com/lulucalm">Please help CALM provide a lifeline to people struggling with suicidal thoughts.</a><br /><br />From their website:<br /><br />We seek to prevent male suicide by:- <br /><ul><li>Offering support to men in the UK, of any age, who are down or in crisis via our helpline and website.&nbsp;</li><li>Challenging a culture that prevents men seeking help when they need it, see <a href="http://www.yearofthemale.com/">www.yearofthemale.com</a> </li><li>Pushing for changes in policy and practice so that suicide is better prevented via partnerships such as The Alliance of Suicide Prevention Charities (TASC), the National Suicide Prevention Alliance (NSPA).&nbsp;</li><li>CALM also hosts the Suicide Bereavement Support Partnership, (which includes Cruse, If U Care Share, Papyrus, SoBS and the Samaritans amongst others). This partnership aims to ensure that everyone bereaved or affected by suicide is offered and receives timely and appropriate support. Its members are working collaboratively to ensure this vision becomes a reality.</li></ul><ul style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"></ul></div>lulucrumblehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07449102379996325573noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5444949773825057317.post-67735793478109730962014-11-01T17:50:00.001+00:002014-11-01T17:52:34.069+00:0031* days sober for suicideThis month I gave up drinking alcohol for the sake of a very important cause. <b>Suicide kills more men aged 20-49 in England and Wales than anything else.</b> <a href="https://www.thecalmzone.net/about-calm/what-is-calm/">The Campaign Against Living Miserably</a> was set up to reduce this tragic problem, by providing a confidential, accessible phone line for people to ring up in times of crisis, as well as other resources.&nbsp;<div><br /></div><div><a href="http://www.givey.com/lulucrumble">Please donate to them</a>. CALM costs money to run, and right now CALM does not have enough money to operate as it wishes. For example, its phone line is only open from 5pm - midnight.<div><br /></div><div>Giving up alcohol has given me an excuse to talk about this. It's a hook, I'm not looking for you to reward my 'achievement', I just want you to know that <b>suicide is the biggest cause of death to young men</b> and you can help prevent the deaths of people who were far too young to die, like my <a href="http://lulucrumble.blogspot.co.uk/2011/07/saying-goodbye.html">brother Paul</a>.&nbsp;<div><br /></div><div>You might say you don't want to be told where to donate and to whom, but I expect many of you did not know that suicide is the biggest killer of young men or that CALM exists, I am just trying to help raise awareness of them.</div><div><br /></div><div><b>Donate through Givey and 100% of your money will go to CALM: <a href="http://www.givey.com/lulucrumble">www.givey.com/lulucrumble</a>.</b></div><div><br /></div><div>The generosity shown so far has been incredible. Please donate. Even £1 helps.</div><div><br /></div><div>Thank you,</div><div>Louise</div><div><br /></div><div>*I gave myself two nights off where I drank a single glass of wine, for which I forfeited £75 for two 'golden tickets'. I am also going to donate the money I would have spent on drinking this month... which is quite a lot, whisky is expensive!</div></div></div>lulucrumblehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07449102379996325573noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5444949773825057317.post-43987068026464556042014-09-08T22:49:00.000+01:002014-09-09T00:01:48.923+01:00This Be The VerseThey fuck you up, your mum and dad,<br /><div>They may not mean to, but they do.</div><div>They fill you with the faults they had</div><div>And add some extra, just for you.</div><div><br /></div><div>But they were fucked up in their turn</div><div>By fools in old style hats and coats,</div><div>Who half the time were soppy-stern</div><div>And half at one another’s throats.</div><div><br /></div><div>Man hands on misery to man.</div><div>It deepens like a coastal shelf.</div><div>Get out as early as you can,</div><div>And don’t have any kids yourself.</div><div><br /></div><div><span style="font-size: x-small;">Philip Larkin, 1971.</span></div>lulucrumblehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07449102379996325573noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5444949773825057317.post-61445760820646450002014-03-30T15:42:00.002+01:002014-10-01T13:26:37.855+01:00My mumMy mum is 68 this year. You wouldn't know to look at her, but a conversation gives it away. The casual, unthinking racism, the 'make do and mend' attitude inherited a war that ended a year before she was born, the lack of sympathy for anyone with a lesser plight than her. Two near-death experiences, the breech birth of her eight pound twelve ounce eldest son, his suicide 37 years later. You don't forget that, and neither will she.<br /><br />My mum's childhood was dominated by dolls, two older sisters, and a father who smashed his fists on the table if his steak wasn't ready when he came home from work, from the harbour where those same calloused hands rigged sails for the big yachts. While he twisted ropes, Gran twisted mum's hair into plaits, so all three girls would stand pristine next to a man who looked more like a pirate than a father. When mum's first marriage broke down and she went back to live at the family bungalow, he said, "You've been a nuisance all your life and you're being a nuisance now."<br /><br />My mum always wanted a daughter. A real, living doll. For a long time, she thought it would never be. Her first two children were boys, named Paul and Jason. They were five and three when her first husband walked out. Paul was held back from starting school in the wake of the divorce, but within months of joining he was reading stories to the class. She says this with such pride, her first born son who looked up at her with such big, beautiful brown eyes after that first traumatic birth. And with the same pride she tells how she attended night school in order to give her little sons a better chance in life.<br /><br />A single mother for five years, she married my dad in 1979. He was the "tall, dark and handsome" man who crossed the ballroom floor to ask for a dance and who, apparently, never looked back. Paul and Jason wore paige boy suits with flared trousers, Dad sported a thick black moustache that he didn't shave off for another fifteen years. (Around that same time he started going grey. Mum bought him a box of "Just for Men" for his 40th birthday. Tact has never been her strong point.)<br /><br />This was Mum's new start. A new husband, a new house, a new set of children. Jonathan came first - another traumatic birth that appears in conversation more than you wish it would, the explanation for the scar that runs under her child-bearing midriff. And then, at last, her longed-for daughter. I was born on the 23rd March 1985 at 9.10am, which I'm reminded of every year with a phone call on the dot. When Jason rang the hospital and found out I was a girl, Paul and him danced around the living room.<br /><br />When I was old enough Mum would put me in pretty pink dresses and brush my golden hair with ribbons and bows but I'd scowl if anyone ever said I looked nice. Not quite the living doll then, but a little girl who wanted to be more like her brothers than the angelic haired princess she appeared to be. Children don't see how much they hurt their parents. I do now.<br /><br />A month before she turned 41, Mum had my youngest brother, Alexander. She tells us all the only reason she had him was because she wanted another girl. Like I said, tact has never been her strong point.<br /><br />Jason and Paul left home for university, and five became a trio. Jonathan, Louise and Alexander. Three mouths to feed, three children to love, three children who were lucky enough to have a mum who was there for them every sick day, every day of the school holidays, every meal time. She had worked damn hard in her twenties and when she met a man who could support the whole family, she chose to stay at home. Born a generation or two later she might have been a business woman. She says she was born to be a mother.<br /><br />Life has a cruel habit of taking away what you cherish the most. Mum had a hysterectomy to remove a fibroid when I was 11, finally taking away the chance of one more child - whose name she had already imagined: Victoria Emma Lucy. When Mum woke up from the operation, she began haemorrhaging internally from inadequate sutures. The surgeons who cut her open needed to operate again, and the nurses were instructed that visitors were banned. White as a ghost but still bloody minded, she demanded that Dad bring me in to see her before she went under. Just me, her only daughter. It's the first memory I have of her saying to me, "I love you." Afterwards, she told me she thought she was going to die.<br /><br />My mum seems undefeatable. She is one of the strongest people I know (yet, at five feet nothing and seven stone three, one of the smallest). She goes to the gym five days a week, she runs for miles, swims, cleans the house, cooks the dinner, wakes up, goes to aerobics, runs for miles, swims, cleans the house, cooks the dinner... she's also pretty compulsive. When we lived at home, she would cook the same meal every day each week: chips, beans and sausages Monday (my favourite), roast dinner on a Thursday and Sunday, salad and jacket potato on Saturday (not my favourite). Her apple crumbles are legendary among my family and friends. She wins the pub quiz more often than not and when she doesn't she beats herself up until she wins it again.<br /><br />When my brother died her adrenal glands stopped working and she spent two weeks in bed with increasingly worsening muscle cramps, until she was admitted to hospital and hooked up to diamorphine. That's the doctor's name for heroin. She was hours from dying before they worked out what was wrong. I don't know how she lived through the pain of losing her eldest son and I don't know how she didn't give up when her organs started to fail. I don't know how she does what she does every day, or how she found the energy to go to night school and raise two boys while doing a job at an age younger than I am now and I can't do just one of those things without complaining how tired I am.<br /><br />But more than I don't know, I won't forget how strong she has been for the sake of her family. Happy Mothering Sunday, Mum.<br /><br />lulucrumblehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07449102379996325573noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5444949773825057317.post-89093172614736551952014-01-26T00:01:00.000+00:002014-01-26T00:01:00.069+00:00The PostcardFrom the helicopter<br />That still nips the psyche<br />And makes the apes look up,<br />The shutter clicked<br />And caught the time<br />That was to become<br />The view to be sent<br />Around the world;<br />The small town's sum.<br />An exposure<br />In more ways than one.<br />Amidst the pretty<br />Hanging baskets<br />More grief<br />Than might be imagined,<br />But that's life.<br />The weather is here,<br />Wish you were beautiful -<br />Why come to this town?<br /><div><br /></div><div><span style="font-size: x-small;">Paul Maddocks (26 January 1969 - 19 April 2007)</span></div>lulucrumblehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07449102379996325573noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5444949773825057317.post-46721838410849920472013-10-07T09:58:00.002+01:002013-10-07T09:58:46.022+01:00To Love At All“To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything and your heart will be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact you must give it to no one, not even an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements. Lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket, safe, dark, motionless, airless, it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. To love is to be vulnerable.”<br /><br /><span style="font-size: x-small;">C.S. Lewis (1898-1963), <i>The Four Loves</i></span>lulucrumblehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07449102379996325573noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5444949773825057317.post-86176692953693191772013-09-25T23:35:00.003+01:002013-10-03T21:38:12.985+01:00Marijuana transformations<span style="font-family: inherit;">"Said Michael Rossman, a veteran of the Berkeley Free Speech Movement, "When a young person took his first puff of psychoactive smoke, he also drew in the psychoactive culture as a whole, the entire matrix of law and association surrounding the drug, its induction and transaction. One inhaled a certain way of dressing, talking, acting, certain attitudes. One became a youth criminal against the State."</span><br /><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span><span style="font-size: x-small;">Martin Lee and Bruce Shlain, <i>Acid Dreams: The Complete Social History of LSD: The CIA, the Sixties, and Beyond</i>&nbsp;(2007).</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; color: black; font-family: Times;"><!--EndFragment--></span></div>lulucrumblehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07449102379996325573noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5444949773825057317.post-48690798134834190162013-09-22T01:10:00.001+01:002013-09-22T01:10:44.703+01:00Prohibition"Drug use, and drug abuse, are a reflection of society, its tensions, its values, and its needs. To punish drug-takers is like a drunk striking the bleary face which he sees in the mirror. Drugs will not be brought under control until society itself changes, enabling men to use them with discrimination, and perhaps in time to dispense with them."<br /><br /><span style="font-size: x-small;">Brian Inglis, <a href="http://www.druglibrary.org/schaffer/lsd/inglisp.htm" target="_blank">The Forbidden Game</a>, 1975.</span>lulucrumblehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07449102379996325573noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5444949773825057317.post-8071448697628297112013-09-20T18:18:00.000+01:002013-09-20T18:18:28.098+01:00Alice's Apple?"It's no accident that the people who popularized the personal computer were Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak, both barefoot, longhaired acid-freaks. It's no accident that most of the people in the software computer industry have had very thoughtful, very profitable and creative psychedelic experiences. Bill Gates, rumor has it, was a very active psychedelic proponent when he was at Harvard, before he, uhh... founded Microsoft."<br /><div><br /></div><div><span style="font-size: x-small;">Timothy Leary <a href="http://www.fargonebooks.com/leary.html" target="_blank">in conversation</a> with <a href="http://todd%20brendan%20fahey/" target="_blank">Todd Brendan Fahey</a>.</span><br /><br /></div>lulucrumblehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07449102379996325573noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5444949773825057317.post-32384951678827565272013-09-16T11:25:00.000+01:002013-09-16T11:25:10.905+01:00Psychedelic Fantasia<div class="MsoNormal">In 1927, German physician Kurt Beringer published a description of his mescaline studies in research</div><div class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal">subjects. One of his subjects said that the remarkable visual images he experienced should be captured in film. Years later, this same subject was hired by Walt Disney as chief visualist for <i>Fantasia</i>.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">This was reported by Peter Stafford in his 1992 books <i><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Psychedelics-Encyclopedia-Peter-Stafford/dp/0914171518" target="_blank">Psychedelics Encylopedia</a></i>. Years later, he could not recall his source for the claim but confidently claimed the report was accurate. It certainly seems plausible, at least.<br /><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div></div><div style="text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/qqM1qmpi8fs" width="560"></iframe><br /></div><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><br /></span></div><span style="font-size: x-small;">via&nbsp;<a href="http://www.maps.org/dissertation/chapter1.pdf">http://www.maps.org/dissertation/chapter1.pdf</a></span><br /><div class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></div>lulucrumblehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07449102379996325573noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5444949773825057317.post-9931748993561974172013-09-15T08:22:00.003+01:002013-10-03T21:39:13.854+01:00Advice to LoversI knew an old man at a fair<br />Who made it his twice-yearly task<br />To clamber on a cider cask<br />And cry to all the lovers there : –<br /><br />‘Lovers of all lands and all time<br />Preserve the meaning of my rhyme,<br />Love is not kindly nor yet grim<br />But does to you as you to him.<br /><br />Whistle, and Love will come to you :<br />Hiss, and he fades without a word :<br />Do wrong, and he great wrong will do :<br />Speak, and he tells what he has heard.<br /><br />Then all you lovers take good heed,<br />Vex not young Love in thought or deed :<br />Love never leaves an unpaid debt,<br />He will not pardon, nor forget.’<br /><br />The old man’s voice was kind yet loud<br />And this shows what a man was he,<br />He’d scatter apples to the crowd<br />And give great draughts of cider free.<br /><br /><span style="font-size: x-small;">Robert Graves, October 1919 via <a href="http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/2012/09/06/advice-to-lovers-robert-graves-1919/" target="_blank">Brainpicker</a></span>lulucrumblehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07449102379996325573noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5444949773825057317.post-36389252590683165152013-08-17T00:50:00.004+01:002013-08-17T00:50:44.502+01:00Is LSD an evolutionary agent?"Possibly. In the LSD state we may become conscious, in the words of Teilhard de Chardin, of the "entire complex of interhuman and intercosmic relations with an immediacy, an intimacy and a realism" that otherwise happen only in spontaneous ecstatic states and to a very few blessed people.<br /><br />Agreement exists among spiritual leaders that the continuation of the present development, characterized by increasing industrialization and overpopulation, will result in the exhaustion of natural resources and destroy the ecological basis for mankind's existence on this planet. This trend to self-annihilation is reinforced by international politics based on "power trips" and the preparation of weapons of apocalyptic potential.<br /><br />This development can be stopped only by a change in the materialistic attitude that has caused this development. This change can result only from insight into the deepest spiritual roots of life and existence, from comprehensive use of all forces of our intelligence and all resources of our knowledge.<br /><br />This intellectual approach, supplemented by visionary experience, could produce an alteration of the consciousness of truth and reality that could be of evolutionary significance. LSD selectively and wisely used could be one means of supplementing intellectual with visionary insight and helping the prepared mind become conscious of a deeper reality."<br /><br /><span style="font-size: x-small;">Albert Hoffman, discoverer of LSD, 1976.</span><br /><span style="font-size: x-small;"><a href="http://www.erowid.org/culture/characters/hofmann_albert/hofmann_albert_interview1.shtml" target="_blank">Horowitz M. "Interview with Albert Hofmann". High Times. 11. 1976.</a></span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">My dissertation is endlessly fascinating.</span>lulucrumblehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07449102379996325573noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5444949773825057317.post-2868960672049923132013-07-27T14:19:00.000+01:002013-08-11T16:50:09.563+01:00The house where Grandad was born<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">last weekend i found myself* at Latitude festival in Suffolk. the festival site is near Ipswich, and i knew my Dad had grown up near there since he supports Ipswich FC. while my friend Justin drove us back to London, i was suddenly moved to call Dad and ask him about the area - just in case we were near his hometown. the conversation went something like this:</span><br /><br />Me: Hi Dad, it's me. I'm just driving through Suffolk, near where you grew up I think. We've just come from Southwold...<br /><br />Dad: If you're driving back to London from Southwold, you'll be on the A12 right? <i>You're about to drive through Yoxford, where I grew up</i>.<br /><br />Me: Oh wow!<br /><br />Dad: But before that you'll drive through Darsham - over a railway crossing, up and down a hill and then <i>you'll drive right past where your Grandad was born</i>.<br /><br />Me: Sorry what did you say? <i>We're going to drive past where Grandad was born?</i><br /><br />Dad: Yep, he was born in a lodge just off the road. You'll see it on the right as you go past...<br /><br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-xzJw6gEJRzE/UfPAz3U4OAI/AAAAAAAAAcE/UwLg2UM7bKM/s1600/Granddad+Crane's+house1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="300" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-xzJw6gEJRzE/UfPAz3U4OAI/AAAAAAAAAcE/UwLg2UM7bKM/s400/Granddad+Crane's+house1.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br />...and we did. Justin kindly stopped the car in a serendipitous lay-by, and&nbsp;we walked back to the house where<i>,</i>&nbsp;<i>on Hallowe'en 1925, my Grandfather, Peter Crane, was born</i>. i can't really explain the feeling i got from seeing for the first time (that i can remember) the house Grandad was born in. and how everything had come together - Justin's very kind offer of a lift to save me the hassle of the train, the sudden inspiration to call Dad and the convenience of our journey home being the exact route to the origins of my family.<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-qqu4eTrTRNo/UfPLsmmDW5I/AAAAAAAAAcU/pMBrGIoSJIw/s1600/Granddad+Crane's+house6.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-qqu4eTrTRNo/UfPLsmmDW5I/AAAAAAAAAcU/pMBrGIoSJIw/s320/Granddad+Crane's+house6.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><br />Grandad lived here with my great-grandfather Crane, my great-grandmum and my four great-uncles until he married my lovely Nanny in 1949 and moved to the neighbouring town of Yoxford. not very far, as you can see from the map...<br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><iframe frameborder="0" height="300" marginheight="0" marginwidth="0" scrolling="no" src="https://maps.google.co.uk/maps/ms?msa=0&amp;msid=214946976160743895052.0004e27dae18b17b2a734&amp;hl=en&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;t=h&amp;ll=52.26448,1.51989&amp;spn=0.015759,0.01708&amp;z=14&amp;output=embed" width="350"></iframe><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><small>View <a href="https://maps.google.co.uk/maps/ms?msa=0&amp;msid=214946976160743895052.0004e27dae18b17b2a734&amp;hl=en&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;t=h&amp;ll=52.26448,1.51989&amp;spn=0.015759,0.01708&amp;z=14&amp;source=embed">Grandad's house</a> in a larger map</small></div><small><br /></small>the Crane family lived in the lodge because my great-grandfather was a groom and gardener for the big house nearby. Grandad also became a gardener. he died when i was seven, so i don't have that many memories of him, but i do remember his house when the family moved to Westhumble in Surrey, and all the beautiful flowers in the garden. Nanny loves flowers, and i do too... i wonder if that's what drew her to Grandad. strangely enough i was recently very attracted to a man whose job involves gardening...<br /><br /><a br="" hre="" href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=5444949773825057317"></a><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yzLT6_TQmq8">it's all just a little bit of history repeating</a>.<br /><br /><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">*huge thank you to Robin for my unexpected Latitude adventure. check out his own current (and crazy) adventure in South Africa, <a href="https://www.facebook.com/67minutesfilm?fref=ts" target="_blank">here</a>.</span>lulucrumblehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07449102379996325573noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5444949773825057317.post-71543583928034487812013-07-16T19:37:00.003+01:002013-08-11T13:57:09.654+01:00Conscious v. Unconscious"Dr. Will Menninger has a single illustration of the Conscious v. Unconscious conflict. The mind, he says, is something like a clown act featuring a two-man fake horse. The man up front (the conscious part of the mind) tries to set the direction and make the whole animal behave; but he can never be sure what the man at the rear end of the horse (the unconscious) is going to do next. If both ends of the horse are going in the same direction, your mental health is all right. If they aren't pulling together, there's likely to be trouble."<br /><br /><i> Time</i>, October 25, 1948, pp. 65-66.<br /><div><br /></div>lulucrumblehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07449102379996325573noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5444949773825057317.post-51671242407039715942013-07-15T17:49:00.003+01:002013-08-11T16:50:34.044+01:00Women of 1926Mother’s advice, and Father’s fears,<br /> Alike are voted—just a bore. <br />There’s Negro music in our ears, <br />The world’s one huge dancing floor. <br />We mean to tread the Primrose Path, <br />In spite of Mr. Joynson-Hicks. <br />We’re People of the Aftermath <br />We’re girls of 1926.<br /><br />In greedy haste, on pleasure bent, <br />We have no time to think, or feel <br />What need is there for sentiment <br />Now we’ve invented Sex Appeal? <br />We’ve silken legs and scarlet lips, <br />We’re young and hungry, wild and free, <br />Our waists are round about the hips <br />Our skirts are well above the knee<br /><br />We’ve boyish busts and Eton crops, <br />We quiver to the saxophone.<br /> Come, dance before the music stops, <br />And who can bear to be alone? <br />Come drink your gin, or sniff your ‘snow’, <br />Since Youth is brief, and Love has wings, <br />And time will tarnish, ere we know, <br />The brightness of the Bright Young Things.<br /><br /><span style="font-size: x-small;">by James Laver (1899-1975)</span><br /><div><br /></div>lulucrumblehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07449102379996325573noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5444949773825057317.post-52809871769664953142013-04-24T23:00:00.004+01:002013-08-11T13:55:37.026+01:00Fates"There are fates worse than death. Longevity drags if you have buried your children. Poverty, loneliness, incontinence, dependence, and dementia are some of the final rewards. Not everybody hopes for a long life followed by death from boredom. Plato in The Republic recalled the gymnastic teacher Herodicus whose skills enabled him to reach old age in a prolonged death struggle. Hesiod’s golden race died swiftly, as though in sleep; they had no old age. Why be afraid of sudden death from coronary heart disease if you cannot regret it the day after?"<br /><br /><span style="font-size: x-small;">Skrabanek, Petr. "Preventive medicine and morality." Lancet 1, no. 8473 (1986): 143. </span>lulucrumblehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07449102379996325573noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5444949773825057317.post-36588766665235975712013-04-19T20:24:00.001+01:002013-06-06T12:44:36.265+01:00the nineteenth of Apriltoday is the day my brother died. we don't know when, exactly, but the landlord found his lifeless body in the communal hallway around half past ten. nobody knows what was going through his mind then. he didn't leave a note. just two empty vodka bottles and a body that ran out of breath.<br /><br />i remember quite clearly the phone call. i was walking past Dream beds on Tottenham Court Road when the nightmare began. "the inevitable's happened. Paul's gone." i think i squeaked something out before a strange, impassive sense of calm descended on me.<br /><br />i met my boyfriend at Warren Street and greeted him with the cold, hard words: "Paul's dead". we hugged for too long and then walked up Hampstead Road to get back home. past the old alcoholic's treatment centre, of all ironies. past flats full of alcoholics like Paul, i expect.<br /><br />when i got home my housemates asked if everything was alright like they already knew it wasn't. i don't know if they did. i know i didn't want to upset them so i just said yes, with a fake cheerful smile that i stuck on my face over the coming black weeks. then i went home to my mum.<br /><br />i don't remember anything of that weekend.<br /><br />on Monday i called my boss into a meeting room and told her with what i thought was the appropriate tone of voice that my eldest brother had died last week and i would need exactly two days off for the funeral and no more because i was absolutely fine and i wouldn't need to take any more time off from work at all.<br /><br />i don't remember anything of that week.<br /><br />until the funeral. i wasn't sure whether to wear trousers or a skirt. but i couldn't ask my mum because my voice <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spasmodic_dysphonia" target="_blank">had disappeared</a>. maybe it was visiting Paul's soul to say the last words i never got to say. i didn't visit his body.<br /><br />Jason cried in the car park. it was the first expression of grief i'd seen. it just made me more like stone. i wasn't upset. i was relieved, and guilty that i was relieved, and angry about feeling guilty, and ashamed because i couldn't cry. my Dad did though.<br /><br />i read a poem. well i tried. the congregation gasped as my <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spasmodic_dysphonia" target="_blank">shell-shocked vocal cords</a> straining at the sounds a normal person would make. but i wasn't normal and i never will be again.<br /><br />at the wake, Jonathan played Paul's music and distributed copies of his poems, "because they should be seen." shame no one saw that while he was alive. i was angry again, but only on the inside.<br /><br />it took a long while for my anger and guilt and shame to reach the top of the bottomless pit of deep dark despair that i didn't know existed in a hole in my heart. once that happened i started leaking. it wouldn't stop.<br /><br />it doesn't stop.lulucrumblehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07449102379996325573noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5444949773825057317.post-85184935646465782662013-04-17T21:22:00.003+01:002013-08-11T13:56:52.404+01:00How the Wellcome Trust once thumbed their noses at Margaret Thatcher<span style="font-family: inherit;">On the day of former prime minister Margaret Thatcher's funeral, it seems appropriate to flag up a wonderful story from the history of the Wellcome Trust. I first came across it while researching interesting aspects of Wellcome's history for their 75th anniversary project, when I was seconded to the public engagement team. My job was to tease out a dozen tales from Wellcome's history that demonstrated its impact, influence and achievement.</span><br /><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: inherit;">In 1989, Margaret Thatcher pulled funding from a survey run from UCL that would assess the state of the nation's sex lives and attitudes towards it. She believed the survey was "an invasion of people's privacy and did not want her government to be associated with it." Sir Donald Acheson, the Chief Medical Officer of the day, saw its importance and went to the then director of the Wellcome Trust, Peter Williams with a plea. Anne Johnson, lead investigator of the National Survey of Sexual Attitudes and Lifestyles (NATSAL) sent her original grant application to Williams and nine days later Wellcome's scientific committee recommended to their Trustees that they provide the full funding for the survey: £900,000. The Trustees unaninmously agreed that same day. </span><br /><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="http://www.wellcome.ac.uk/stellent/groups/corporatesite/@msh_publishing_group/documents/image/wtvm051251.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="color: black;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://www.wellcome.ac.uk/stellent/groups/corporatesite/@msh_publishing_group/documents/image/wtvm051251.jpg" width="223" /></span></a></span></div><span style="font-family: inherit;"><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: x-small;">Journalist Mike Durham with his Sunday Times story about Margaret Thatcher blocking NATSAL funding.&nbsp;</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: x-small;">Credit: Wellcome Library, London</span><br /><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: x-small;"><br /></span></div>Some involved in the decision were concerned that Wellcome might appear to be "thumbing their noses" to the Prime Minister. Fortunately, they also believed that politicians should not have "a veto on a well-designed study that many saw as key to the tackling of a looming medical emergency."</span><br /><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: inherit;">And it seems Wellcome's scientific committee and its Trustees made the right decision. The rest of the <a href="http://www.wellcome.ac.uk/About-us/75th-anniversary/WTVM051253.htm" target="_blank">story</a> is published on the Wellcome Trust's website, as written by Nic Fleming following mine and Benjamin Thompson's initial research.</span>lulucrumblehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07449102379996325573noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5444949773825057317.post-83801342801497358582013-04-15T10:30:00.001+01:002013-08-11T13:56:24.585+01:00And The Winner Is...Early morning, never sleep<br />Enough to have a dream.<br />Dreads bathing mother, fears<br />That no-one will be<br /><i>Her</i>&nbsp;selfless friend<br />When the time draws near<br />That is misnamed 'the end'.<br /><br />The postman nearly visits,<br />On the mat a letter<br />Sealed in dumb reply<br />To her only ever<br />Rush of madness -<br />"<i>Why you should have a holiday</i><br /><i>In twenty words or less.</i>"<br /><br />Excitement lasts a gulp<br />Then stood one foot upon<br />The pristine pedal of the bin<br />The thought that if she'd won......<br />If frightens her to laugh;<br />The unopened letter gets dropped in<br />And she goes to run the bath.<br /><br /><span style="font-size: x-small;">Paul Maddocks (1969-2007)</span>lulucrumblehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07449102379996325573noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5444949773825057317.post-272106296833147932013-03-13T12:34:00.003+00:002013-08-11T13:56:52.401+01:00The Tubes and Flaps of Modern MedicineI'm reading James Le Fanu's account of "<a href="http://www.amazon.co.uk/Rise-Fall-Modern-Medicine/dp/0349123756" target="_blank">The Rise and Fall of Modern Medicine</a>". It's a gripping whistle-stop tour of how medicine changed dramatically from the era of the First World War onwards. Le Fanu pulls out such glorious gems of whimsy in these tales of triumph, I just had to share one here:<br /><br />In 1973, reports of the first "free skin flap transfer" gave hope that the old style "tube pedicle" transfer -whereby a portion of skin is removed from a healthy area and conjoined to skin that has been damaged (namely from burns) until this skin tube, or bridge, naturally gains a blood supply from the new site, is removed entirely from the healthy area and then sewn as a flap of healthy skin over the damaged area - could become a technique of the past.<br /><br />The first of the new microsurgical free skin flap transfers involved the complete removal of healthy tissue from an Australian patient's groin area and subsequent transfer to the area of damaged skin on the ankle. This technique made use of the newly-invented operating microscope to enable grafting of miniscule blood vessels between the skin surrounding the damaged site and the healthy skin graft. The tension lay in the skill of the surgeon connecting these pin-head sized vessels, and the question of whether they would immediately carry blood through to the grafted skin.<br /><br />In this case, they did. And here is the gem:<br /><br />"After 17 days the sutures were removed and a few luxuriant pubic hairs were noted growing on the ankle."<br /><br />Le Fanu mined this&nbsp;quote&nbsp;from <a href="http://journals.lww.com/plasreconsurg/Citation/1973/08000/Distant_Transfer_of_An_Island_Flap_By.1.aspx" target="_blank">the original paper</a> in <i>Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery*</i>. It is the appearance of the word "luxuriant" more than "pubic hairs" that really makes me smile. 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UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="Book Title"/> <w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="37" Name="Bibliography"/> <w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" QFormat="true" Name="TOC Heading"/> </w:LatentStyles></xml><![endif]--> <!--[if gte mso 10]><style> /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0cm; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:Calibri; mso-fareast-language:EN-GB;} </style><![endif]--> <!--StartFragment--> <br /><div class="MsoNormal"><b><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></b></div><!--EndFragment-->lulucrumblehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07449102379996325573noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5444949773825057317.post-85067992659242278062013-01-22T00:12:00.001+00:002013-08-11T14:02:22.689+01:00Just So<div>There's no harm in asking<br />Why everything should be just so<br />There's no harm in dreaming<br />That someday I'll know all there is to know<br />I just want to know<br />Perhaps it's true that some surprises<br />Are much better left untold<br />But there's no harm in hoping<br />That one day their secrets<br />Unfold<br /><br />Why does the ostrich have feathers that grow in a plume?<br />And why does the hippo have tiny red eyes<br />When there's so much room for eyes to bloom?<br />Why do camels get the hump?<br />Why does the crab play with the sea?<br /><br />Why does no one seem to be bothered by questions but me?<br /><br />In these High and Far-Off Times<br />There must be reasons behind rhymes<br />There must be answers to every question<br />And puzzle, I propose<br />Though I've asked all of my cousins<br />Aunts and uncles in their dozens<br />The only thing I've learned<br />Is no one knows<br />No one knows...<br /><br />There's no harm in asking<br />Why everything should be just so<br />(I like his young, inquiring mind)<br />There's no harm in dreaming<br />That someday I'll know all there is know<br />(A joie-de-vivre...?)<br /><br />Perhaps it's true that some surprises<br />Are far better left untold<br />But there's no harm in hoping<br />That one day their secrets<br />(One day their secrets)<br />Unfold<br /><br />There's no harm in asking<br />(No harm in asking)<br />Why everything should be<br />Just so<br /><br />Anthony Drewe, from the musical <i>Just So</i>&nbsp;based on the <i>Just So Stories</i> by Rudyard Kipling</div>lulucrumblehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07449102379996325573noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5444949773825057317.post-18614073250456521132013-01-08T19:44:00.000+00:002013-05-08T10:00:21.861+01:00if today were the day you had to stop dancing…Kiss today goodbye<br />The sweetness and the sorrow<br />Wish me luck, the same to you<br />But I can't regret<br />What I did for love, what I did for love<br /><br />Look, my eyes are dry<br />The gift was ours to borrow<br />It's as if we always knew<br />And I won't forget what I did for love<br />What I did for love<br /><br />Gone<br />Love is never gone<br />As we travel on<br />Love's what we'll remember<br /><br />Kiss today goodbye<br />And point me toward tomorrow<br />We did what we had to do<br />Won't forget, can't regret<br />What I did for love<br /><br />What I did for love<br />What I did for<br /><br />Love<br />Love is never gone<br />As we travel on<br />Love's what we'll remember<br /><br />Kiss today goodbye<br />And point me toward tomorrow<br /><br />Point me toward tomorrow<br />We did what we had to do<br />Won't forget, can't regret<br />What I did for love what I did for love<br /><br />What I did for love<br /><span style="font-size: x-small;">by Marvin Hamlisch and Edward Kleban</span><br /><span style="font-size: x-small;"><br /></span>these lyrics are from <i>A Chorus Line</i>, a musical i have a dance chorus part in, but will likely have to drop out of because i have fractured my foot. i broke it in July when i fell off the fence i was peering over when i was lost taking a shortcut home. i have been dancing on it since then, not knowing it was fractured but feeling something wasn't right. the pain has been overwhelming at times, but it's worth it.&nbsp;just for the sheer joy of dancing.lulucrumblehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07449102379996325573noreply@blogger.com0